metabolic activation
Bodily chemical transformation
Metabolic activation is the process by which the body's enzymes convert a substance into a more chemically reactive form.
The term appears most often in toxicology and pharmacology, where an otherwise harmless compound becomes toxic or carcinogenic only after the liver metabolizes it: The drug requires metabolic activation to become effective.
Some carcinogens cause cancer not directly but through their metabolically activated products.
- dehydrogenaseHydrogen-removing enzyme class
- transferaseGroup-moving enzyme
- oxidaseOxygen-dependent catalytic protein
- pharmacokineticsDrug fate in body
- kinasePhosphate-transferring enzyme
electrophile · bioactivation · synthase · phosphatase · carcinogen · mutagenic · epoxide · reactive · liver · pathway · substrate · intermediate · conversion · enzyme · CYP450 · liver enzymes · oxidation · biotransformation
- Genetic Mutationsmutations, point mutation, mutagenesis, gene mutation, nonsense
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